CN110268761B - Paging response in beamformed systems - Google Patents

Abstract

Aspects of the present disclosure implement techniques that allow a base station to transmit a "short paging" message (e.g., a paging indicator) to one or more UEs. The short paging message may be decoded by all UEs in the paging cycle and identifies the subset of UEs paged by the base station from the full set of UEs. Upon decoding a short page transmitted by a base station, the UE may respond to the base station with a "short page response" on a transmit beam that provides the best signal quality (e.g., low signal-to-noise ratio, transmit power, etc.). Thus, in some examples, the UE may provide feedback to the base station in response to receiving the short paging message such that the base station may select a transmit beam for transmission of subsequent messages (and other communications).

Description

Paging response in beamformed systems

Cross Reference to Related Applications

This patent application claims priority from us non-provisional application No.15/889,072 entitled "PAGING RESPONSE IN beam forming system" filed on 5.2.2018 and us provisional application S/n.62/456,404 entitled "PAGING RESPONSE IN beam forming system" filed on 8.2.2017, both of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference IN their entirety.

Background

Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communication networks, and more particularly to facilitating transmit beamforming by a base station with feedback from a User Equipment (UE).

Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, and broadcasting. Typical wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access techniques capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access techniques include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) systems, and single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems.

These multiple access techniques have been adopted in various telecommunications standards to provide a common protocol that enables different wireless devices to communicate on a city, country, region, and even global level. For example, the 5G New Radio (NR) communication technology is designed to extend and support diverse usage scenarios and applications relative to current mobile network architectures. In one aspect, the 5G communication technology includes: a human-centric enhanced mobile broadband addressing use case for accessing multimedia content, services and data; ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) with stringent requirements, particularly in terms of latency and reliability; and for very large numbers of connected devices and large-scale machine-type communications that typically convey relatively small amounts of non-delay sensitive information. However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to grow, there is a need for further improvements in 5G communication technologies as well as communication technologies beyond 5G.

One area of recent improvement has focused on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques that allow communication systems to improve the robustness of data transmission and/or increase data rates. In general, a MIMO system includes multiple transmit antennas at a transmitter and multiple receive antennas at a receiver. In one implementation of MIMO technology, beamforming permits targeted illumination covering a specific area in a cell, which makes it possible to improve transmissions to users at the far end of the cell coverage. Specifically, beamforming controls the direction of a wavefront using multiple antennas by weighting the amplitude and phase of individual antenna signals (referred to as transmit beamforming). As such, beamforming provides the possibility to direct a beam to a selected UE.

However, in some cases, it may be challenging for a base station to efficiently utilize beamforming to direct a page to a particular UE, e.g., when one or more UEs are in an idle mode (e.g., sleep mode) and only periodically wake up to listen for paging messages. In particular, because a base station may not be aware of the exact location within its coverage area where a UE may wake up to listen for paging messages, the base station typically transmits in multiple directions (referred to as a transmission sweep) in order to ensure that idle mode UEs receive paging messages. However, such transmission sweeps are resource intensive. The resource consumption of conventional systems is further burdened when the base station needs to transmit a subsequent paging message (e.g., a long paging message) that may include a longer duration transmission (e.g., including a greater number of data packets than an initial page (e.g., a short paging message) that includes limited identification information).

SUMMARY

Aspects of the present disclosure address the above-identified problems by implementing techniques by which a base station may transmit a "short paging" message (e.g., a paging indicator) to one or more UEs. The short paging message may be decoded by all UEs in the paging cycle and identifies the subset of UEs paged by the base station from the full set of UEs. Upon decoding a short page transmitted by a base station, the UE may respond with a "short page response" to the base station on a transmit beam that provides the best signal quality (e.g., low signal-to-noise ratio). Thus, in some examples, the UE may provide feedback to the base station in response to receiving the short paging message such that the base station may select a transmission beam for transmission of subsequent long paging messages (and other communications). Based on feedback from one or more UEs ("short paging responses"), the base station may improve the efficiency of the system by grouping multiple UEs to be paged using the same beam in order to maximize the use of available resources.

In one example, a method for wireless communication is disclosed. The method can comprise the following steps: a plurality of short paging messages are transmitted from a base station to a plurality of UEs using a plurality of beams. In response to the transmission of the plurality of short paging messages, the base station may receive a plurality of short paging responses from the plurality of UEs identifying signal quality information for at least one beam from the plurality of beams. The method can comprise the following steps: selecting a beam for subsequent communication with at least one UE from the plurality of UEs based on the signal quality information. Accordingly, the method may further comprise: transmitting a message to the at least one UE using the selected beam.

In another example, an apparatus for wireless communication is disclosed. The apparatus may include a memory configured to store instructions and a processor communicatively coupled with the memory. The processor may be configured to execute instructions to transmit, from a base station, a plurality of short paging messages to a plurality of UEs using a plurality of beams. The processor may receive, from the plurality of UEs, a plurality of short paging responses identifying signal quality information about at least one beam from the plurality of beams in response to the transmission of the plurality of short paging messages. The processor may further include instructions to: selecting a beam for subsequent communication with at least one UE from the plurality of UEs based on the signal quality information. Accordingly, the processor may further transmit a message to the at least one UE using the selected beam.

In another example, a method for enabling wireless communication by a UE is disclosed. The method can comprise the following steps: a short paging message is received at the UE from a base station on a plurality of beams. The method may further comprise: the short paging message is decoded to determine whether the short page identifies the UE as an intended paging target. The method may further comprise: the method also includes selecting a transmit beam from the plurality of beams for subsequent communication with the base station, and transmitting a response to the base station using the selected beam.

In another example, an apparatus for wireless communication is disclosed. The apparatus may include a memory configured to store instructions and a processor communicatively coupled with the memory. The processor may be configured to execute the instructions to receive, at the UE, a short paging message from the base station on a plurality of beams. The instructions are further executable by the processor to decode the short page message to determine whether the short page identifies the UE as an intended paging target. The instructions are further executable by the processor to select a transmit beam from the plurality of beams for subsequent communication with the base station, and transmit a response to the base station using the selected beam.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, the one or more aspects comprise the features hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the claims. The following description and the annexed drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative features of the one or more aspects. These features are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of various aspects may be employed and the present description is intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents.

Brief Description of Drawings

The disclosed aspects will hereinafter be described in conjunction with the appended drawings, provided to illustrate and not to limit the disclosed aspects, wherein like designations denote like elements, and in which:

fig. 1 illustrates an example of a wireless communication system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure;

fig. 2A illustrates a schematic diagram of a support beamforming array in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure;

fig. 2B illustrates a system that allows a base station to group multiple UEs to be paged using a single beam based on short paging, in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an aspect of an implementation of various components of a transmitting device (e.g., a base station) in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure;

fig. 4 illustrates a wireless communication method in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of an aspect of an implementation of various components of a recipient device (e.g., UE) in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure; and

fig. 6 is a flow diagram of an example method implemented by a UE for responding to a short paging message from a base station in a wireless communication system, in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

As discussed above, in some cases, one or more UEs may be in an idle mode (e.g., sleep mode) and only periodically wake up to listen for paging messages transmitted by the base station. However, it can be challenging for a base station to efficiently utilize beamforming to direct a page to a particular UE because the base station may not know the exact location within its coverage area where the UE may wake up to listen for the paging message.

To account for this uncertainty, the base station typically transmits a short page including UE identification information in multiple directions in order to ensure that idle mode UEs (possibly in power save or sleep mode) receive the paging message. However, such transmission sweeps are resource intensive, and utilizing similar transmissions for larger packets (e.g., long paging messages) may adversely affect resource management of the base station.

Aspects of the present disclosure address the above-identified problems by providing techniques by which a base station may transmit a "short paging" message (e.g., a paging indicator) to one or more UEs. The short paging message may be decoded by all UEs in the paging cycle and identifies the subset of UEs paged by the base station from the full set of UEs. Upon decoding a short page transmitted by a base station, the UE may respond with a "short page response" to the base station on a transmit beam that provides the best signal quality (e.g., low signal-to-noise ratio). Thus, in this manner, the UE may provide feedback to the base station in response to receiving the short paging message such that the base station may select a transmit beam for transmission of a subsequent long paging message (or other communication).

In one example of this implementation, the base station may transmit the short paging message using a beam sweeping technique (e.g., transmit the short paging message on multiple beams in multiple directions). In particular, beam sweeping techniques involve the use of multiple antenna elements at a base station in a MIMO system such that the resulting beam has a narrow beamwidth. However, the transmission of individual narrow beams may lead to poor coverage in some areas, as the energy is concentrated in the direction of its main lobe. To solve this problem, a beam sweep procedure using a phased array is generally employed. During the beam sweep, the base station transmits the individual beams sequentially or concurrently until a certain region of interest is completely scanned. The far point is then covered because each beam can radiate energy using individual transmit power.

The short paging message may be decoded by all UEs in a paging cycle to identify the particular UE being paged by the base station. The UE, upon detecting that it is the intended recipient of the short paging message, may identify the receive beam that provides the greatest signal quality (e.g., low signal-to-noise ratio, transmission power, etc.) during the beam sweep process and provide such information to the base station in a short paging response (e.g., feedback). Based on the short paging response, the base station may transmit a subsequent long paging message using the identified beam direction. It should be understood that throughout this disclosure, the terms "short paging message" and "short paging message" may be used interchangeably to refer to a paging message transmitted by a base station to identify a particular UE being paged by the base station. Similarly, the term "long paging message" or "long paging message" may be used to refer to a paging message (or any subsequent communication) transmitted by a base station to a UE.

Additionally or alternatively, features of the present disclosure provide efficiency improvements over conventional systems by allowing a base station to group multiple UEs to be paged using a single beam (or a subset of beams selected from a full set of available beams) based on short paging responses received from the multiple UEs. For example, if multiple UEs are clustered close to each other, the base station may be able to improve system efficiency by paging multiple UEs concurrently using the same beam. Thus, for example and without limitation, UEs near the center of the cell (e.g., near the base station) may be paged together on an omni-directional beam, thereby saving valuable system resources.

To facilitate such grouping, a short paging response from a UE may identify received signal/beam quality information to allow the base station to make an informed decision in selecting the beam that provides the best signal quality between the base station and the UE (or group of UEs). In some aspects, the signal/beam quality information may include information such as the strength of the received beam among the short paging beam sweep, the strength of a subset of the received beams (along with the beam identifier), and the strength of the most recently measured subset of the synchronization channel beams (along with the beam and slot identifiers). In some examples, the strength of a subset of the most recently measured synchronization channel beams may be reported if the synchronization beam is measured no more than N time slots before the current time slot, where the value of N may be set by an operator of the system. In particular, since the base station knows the relationship between the synchronization channel and the short paging beam, the base station can use this knowledge to optimize beam grouping (e.g., decide whether the synchronization beam is better than the short paging beam). In some examples, the transmit power level of the short paging response may be based on the strength of the "best" received beam for the short paging message. For purposes of this disclosure, the term "best beam" may refer to one or more beams that provide a signal quality that provides relatively improved performance over the signal quality of the different beam(s). Thus, signal quality may include, but is not limited to, measurements of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal strength, data rate, quality of service (QoS), reliability, and the like. It should also be noted that the transmit beam direction is based on the corresponding receive beam of the short page, assuming reciprocity (e.g., the received beams would share the same characteristics of the transmit beam). If the reciprocity principle is not available, the UE may transmit a short paging response back to the base station using beam sweeping (e.g., using multiple beams).

The techniques of this disclosure may further facilitate UE feedback by including resource allocation information in an initial short paging message transmitted by a base station. The resource allocation information may include information related to one or more of time, frequency, bandwidth, DMRS cyclic shift/code, or component carriers (e.g., for cross-carrier allocation). With multiple component carriers, each UE may be configured to listen for short paging messages in a particular component carrier. A UE receiving one (or a limited) component carrier may need to be paged by the base station on one (or a limited) component carrier. However, a UE receiving multiple component carriers may combine the short paging message onto a single component carrier, thereby reducing the overhead required for the short paging message.

It should be appreciated that such resource allocation information allows the base station to prevent collisions between multiple short paging responses for multiple UEs. However, adding such additional information to the short paging message may also always increase the overhead in the short paging message. Thus, in some examples, the size of the short paging message may depend on the number of UEs being paged. The base station may limit uncontrolled enlargement of the paging message size by assigning a maximum paging size requirement to any short paging message transmitted to the UE. Any incomplete portion of the resource allocation information (e.g., if the short paging message includes only resource information related to time, frequency, and bandwidth, not DMRS cyclic shift/code or component carrier) may be populated or determined by the UE based on previously stored configuration information that may inform the UE of incomplete (or missing) resource allocation information. However, if more than one UE being paged has the same previous configuration, such a determination may result in short-page response collisions when multiple UEs transmit respective short-page responses to the base station. In this case, the base station may minimize such collisions at the expense of increased paging latency by avoiding paging UEs in the same paging cycle.

The short paging response transmitted by the UE to the base station may also be an encoded packet. The coding scheme may be based on the pre-configured information, or one or more coding parameters (e.g., number of beam reports) may be part of the resource allocation in the short paging message. This may be quantified to avoid excessive short paging overhead (e.g., "small" versus "large" beam reporting). The short page response may also be sequence based. In other words, the base station may expect a particular sequence(s) from the UE in response to the transmission of the short paging message. The sequence(s) may be pre-agreed (e.g., configured by RRC or in MIB/mSIB/SIB). In other examples, multiple sequences may be used to carry information. For example, the UE may select from a plurality of sequences (e.g., two sequences) to indicate whether the received beam is stronger than a predetermined reference. The "predetermined reference" may be a fixed RSRP threshold or a fixed offset of the strength of the strongest synchronization beam. The network (or base station) may set a predetermined reference threshold/offset so that it can use the indication to determine whether the UE can be paged on the omni-directional beam.

Various aspects are now described in more detail with reference to fig. 1-6. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of one or more aspects. It may be evident, however, that such aspect(s) may be practiced without these specific details. In addition, the term "component" as used herein may be one of the parts that make up the system, may be hardware, firmware, and/or software stored on a computer-readable medium, and may be divided into other components.

The following description provides examples and does not limit the scope, applicability, or examples set forth in the claims. Changes may be made in the function and arrangement of elements discussed without departing from the scope of the disclosure. Various examples may omit, substitute, or add various procedures or components as appropriate. For example, the described methods may be performed in an order different than described, and various steps may be added, omitted, or combined. Furthermore, features described with reference to some examples may be combined in other examples.

Referring to fig. 1, an example wireless communication network 100 may include one or more base stations 105, one or more UEs 115, and a core network 130, in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure. The core network 130 may provide user authentication, access authorization, tracking, Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity, and other access, routing, or mobility functions. The base station 105 may interface with the core network 130 over a backhaul link 134 (e.g., S1, etc.). The base station 105 may perform radio configuration and scheduling for communicating with the UE115, or may operate under the control of a base station controller (not shown). In various examples, the base stations 105 can communicate with each other directly or indirectly (e.g., through the core network 130) over backhaul links 134 (e.g., X1, etc.), which backhaul links 134 can be wired or wireless communication links. In some examples, one or more UEs 115 may include a communication management component 250 to perform one or more techniques of this disclosure. The components and subcomponents of the communication management component 250 that perform one or more of the following techniques and methods are described in detail with reference to FIG. 2: feedback is provided in the short paging response (e.g., received signal/beam quality information) and/or a transmission beam is determined based on the received UE feedback (e.g., for long paging).

The base station 105 may communicate wirelessly with the UE115 via one or more base station antennas. Each base station 105 may provide communication coverage for a respective geographic coverage area 110. In some examples, base station 105 may be referred to as a base transceiver station, radio base station, access point, radio transceiver, node B, evolved node B (eNB), home node B, home evolved node B, g B node, gNB, relay, or some other suitable terminology. The geographic coverage area 110 of a base station 105 may be divided into sectors or cells (not shown) that form only a portion of the coverage area. The wireless communication network 100 may include different types of base stations 105 (e.g., macro base stations or small cell base stations described below). Additionally, the plurality of base stations 105 may operate in accordance with different ones of a plurality of communication technologies (e.g., 5G, 4G/LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, bluetooth, etc.), and thus there may be overlapping geographic coverage areas 110 for the different communication technologies.

In some examples, the wireless communication network 100 may be or include a Long Term Evolution (LTE) or LTE-advanced (LTE-a) technology network. The wireless communication network 100 may also be a next generation technology network, such as a 5G wireless communication network. In an LTE/LTE-a network, the term evolved node B (eNB) or gNB may be used generally to describe base station 105, while the term UE may be used generally to describe UE 115. The wireless communication network 100 may be a heterogeneous LTE/LTE-a network in which different types of enbs provide coverage for various geographic regions. For example, each eNB or base station 105 may provide communication coverage for a macro cell, a small cell, or other type of cell. The term "cell" is a 3GPP term that can be used to describe a base station, a carrier or component carrier associated with a base station, or a coverage area (e.g., sector, etc.) of a carrier or base station, depending on the context.

A macro cell may generally cover a relatively large geographic area (e.g., several kilometers in radius) and may allow unrestricted access by UEs 115 with service subscriptions with the network provider.

A small cell may include a relatively lower transmit power base station (as compared to a macro cell) that may operate in the same or different frequency band (e.g., licensed, unlicensed, etc.) as the macro cell. According to various examples, a small cell may include a picocell, a femtocell, and a microcell. Picocells, for example, may cover a small geographic area and may allow unrestricted access by UEs 115 with service subscriptions with the network provider. A femtocell may also cover a small geographic area (e.g., a residence) and may provide restricted access and/or unrestricted access by UEs 115 associated with the femtocell (e.g., in the case of restricted access, UEs 115 in a Closed Subscriber Group (CSG) of base station 105, which may include UEs 115 of users in the residence, etc.). The eNB for a macro cell may be referred to as a macro eNB. An eNB for a small cell may be referred to as a small cell eNB, pico eNB, femto eNB, or home eNB. An eNB may support one or more (e.g., two, three, four, etc.) cells (e.g., component carriers).

The communication network that may accommodate some of the various disclosed examples may be a packet-based network operating according to a layered protocol stack, and the data in the user plane may be IP-based. The Radio Link Control (RLC) layer may perform packet segmentation and reassembly for communication on logical channels. The MAC layer may perform priority setting and multiplexing of logical channels into transport channels. The MAC layer may also use HARQ to provide retransmission by the MAC layer, thereby improving link efficiency. In the control plane, a Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol layer may provide establishment, configuration, and maintenance of RRC connections between the UE115 and the base station 105. The RRC protocol layer may also be used for the support of radio bearers for user plane data by the core network 130. At the Physical (PHY) layer, transport channels may be mapped to physical channels.

The UEs 115 may be dispersed throughout the wireless communication network 100, and each UE115 may be stationary or mobile. UE115 may also include or be referred to by those skilled in the art as a mobile station, a subscriber station, a mobile unit, a subscriber unit, a wireless unit, a remote unit, a mobile device, a wireless communications device, a remote device, a mobile subscriber station, an access terminal, a mobile terminal, a wireless terminal, a remote terminal, a handset, a user agent, a mobile client, a client, or some other suitable terminology. The UE115 may be a cellular telephone, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a wireless modem, a wireless communication device, a handheld device, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a cordless telephone, a Wireless Local Loop (WLL) station, an entertainment appliance, a vehicular component, or any device capable of communicating in the wireless communication network 100. Additionally, the UE115 may be an internet of things (IoT) and/or machine-to-machine (M2M) type device, such as a low power, low data rate type device (e.g., relative to a wireless telephone) that may communicate with the wireless communication network 100 or other UEs infrequently in some aspects. The UE115 may be capable of communicating with various types of base stations 105 and network equipment, including macro enbs, small cell enbs, relay base stations, and the like.

The UE115 may be configured to establish one or more wireless communication links 125 with one or more base stations 105. The wireless communication link 125 shown in the wireless communication network 100 may carry UL transmissions from the UE115 to the base station 105, or Downlink (DL) transmissions from the base station 105 to the UE 115. Downlink transmissions may also be referred to as forward link transmissions, and uplink transmissions may also be referred to as reverse link transmissions. Each wireless communication link 125 may include one or more carriers, where each carrier may be a signal (e.g., a waveform signal of a different frequency) made up of multiple subcarriers modulated according to the various radio technologies described above. Each modulated signal may be sent on a different subcarrier and may carry control information (e.g., reference signals, control channels, etc.), overhead information, user data, and so on. In an aspect, communication link 125 may communicate bidirectional communications using Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) operation (e.g., using paired spectrum resources) or Time Division Duplex (TDD) operation (e.g., using unpaired spectrum resources). Frame structures for FDD (e.g., frame structure type 1) and TDD (e.g., frame structure type 2) may be defined. Further, in some aspects, the communication link 125 may represent one or more broadcast channels.

In the wireless communication network 100, one or more UEs 115 may be in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connected mode or an RRC idle mode. During the RRC connected mode, the UE115 may maintain established communication with the base station 105. During the RRC idle mode, the UE115 may be in a sleep mode without any communication with the base station 105. Sleep mode may, for example, provide the UE115 with an opportunity to conserve battery power.

In some aspects of the wireless communication network 100, a base station 105 or a UE115 may include multiple antennas to employ an antenna diversity scheme to improve communication quality and reliability between the base station 105 and the UE 115. Additionally or alternatively, the base station 105 or the UE115 may employ multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques that may utilize a multipath environment to transmit multiple spatial layers carrying the same or different encoded data.

In the case where the UE115 is in RRC idle mode, the base station 105 may initiate access to the UE115 using a paging procedure. The term "paging procedure" or "paging message" may refer to any control message transmitted by the base station 105 to alert the UE115 of the presence of a page. Thus, one or more UEs 115 in RRC idle mode may only periodically wake up to listen for paging messages. Because a UE115 in RRC idle mode may only wake up periodically, it may be challenging for the base station 105 to efficiently utilize beamforming to direct a page to a particular UE 115. In particular, because the base station may not be aware of the exact location or cell in which the UE115 may wake up to listen for paging messages, the base station 105 typically transmits in multiple directions (referred to as transmission sweeps) in order to ensure that idle mode UEs receive paging messages. However, as discussed above, such transmission sweeps are resource intensive.

Aspects of the present disclosure address the above-identified problems by providing techniques for a communication management component 350 of a base station 105 to transmit a "short paging" message (e.g., a paging indicator) to one or more UEs 115. The short paging message may be decoded by all UEs in the paging cycle and identifies the subset of UEs paged by the base station from the full set of UEs. Upon decoding a short page transmitted by a base station 105, the paging management component 550 of the UE115 may respond to the base station with a "short page response" on the transmit beam that provides the best signal quality (e.g., low signal-to-noise ratio). Thus, in this manner, the paging management component 550 of the UE115 may provide feedback to the base station 105 in response to receiving the short paging message such that the base station 105 may select a transmit beam for transmission of a subsequent long paging message (or other communication). The features of the communication management component 350 of the base station 105 and the paging management component 550 of the UE115 are described in more detail below.

The wireless communication network 100 may support operation on multiple cells or carriers, which is a feature that may be referred to as Carrier Aggregation (CA) or multi-carrier operation. The carriers may also be referred to as Component Carriers (CCs), layers, channels, and the like. The terms "carrier," "component carrier," "cell," and "channel" may be used interchangeably herein. The UE115 may be configured with multiple downlink CCs for carrier aggregation and one or more uplink CCs. Carrier aggregation may be used with both FDD and TDD component carriers.

Fig. 2A shows a schematic diagram 200 supporting a beamforming array in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure. In some examples, the base station 105 and the UE115 may be examples of the base station and the UE described above with reference to fig. 1.

In some examples, the base station 105 may include a beamforming array 210 that incorporates a plurality of antennas 215 to implement a plurality of beams 225 for establishing communications with the UE 115. Beamforming is a technique for directional signal transmission and reception. Beamforming at the transmitter may involve phase shifting signals generated at different antennas 215 in the array to focus the transmission in a particular direction. The phase shifted signals may interact to produce constructive interference in certain directions and destructive interference in other directions. By focusing the signal power, a transmitter (e.g., base station 105) may increase communication throughput while reducing interference with neighboring transmitters.

Similarly, beamforming at a receiver (e.g., UE 115) may involve phase shifting signals received at different antennas (not shown) of UE 115. When combining the phase shifted signals, the UE115 may amplify signals from certain directions and reduce signals from other directions. In some cases, the receiver and the transmitter may utilize beamforming techniques independently of each other. In other cases, the transmitter and receiver may coordinate to select the beam 225 direction. The use of beamforming may depend on factors such as the type of signal being transmitted and the channel conditions. Directional transmission may not be useful, for example, when transmitting to multiple receivers, or when the location of the receivers is unknown. Thus, beamforming may be appropriate for unicast transmissions, but may not be useful for broadcast transmissions. Furthermore, beamforming may be appropriate when transmitting in a high frequency radio band, such as in the millimeter wave (MMW) band.

Since the size of the beamforming array 210 is proportional to the signal wavelength, smaller devices may be able to beamform in the high frequency band. Furthermore, the increased received power may compensate for increased path loss at these frequencies. In some examples, beamforming pattern 220 may include one or more beams 225 that may be identified by individual beam IDs.

In one example of this implementation, the base station 105 may transmit the short paging message using a beam sweeping technique (e.g., transmit the short paging message on multiple beams 225 in multiple directions). In particular, the beam sweeping technique involves the use of multiple antennas 215 at the base station in a MIMO system such that the resulting beam 225 has a narrow beamwidth. During the beam sweep, the base station 105 may transmit the individual beams 225 sequentially or concurrently until a certain region of interest is completely scanned. The far point is then covered because each beam 225 can radiate energy using individual transmit power.

The short paging message transmitted by the base station 105 using beamforming may be decoded by each UE115 (e.g., the first UE115-a and the second UE 115-b) in a paging cycle to identify a particular UE (e.g., the first UE 115-a) paged by the base station. The first UE115-a, upon detecting that it is the intended recipient of the short paging message, may identify the receive beam 225 (e.g., the first beam 225-a) that provides the greatest signal quality (e.g., low signal-to-noise ratio, transmission power, etc.) during the beam sweep process and provide such information back to the base station 105 in a short paging response (e.g., feedback). Based on the short page response, the base station 105 may transmit a subsequent long page message using the identified beam direction 225-a.

Further, as illustrated in the diagram 250 of fig. 2B, features of the present disclosure provide an improvement to the efficiency of conventional systems by allowing a base station to group multiple UEs to be paged using a single beam (or a subset of beams selected from the full set of available beams) based on short paging responses received from multiple UEs 115. For example, if a first set of multiple UEs 115 (e.g., a first UE115-a and a second UE 115-b) are clustered close to each other, the base station 105 may associate the first UE115-a and the second UE 115-b to a first group 250-a, and a second set of multiple UEs 115 (e.g., a third UE 115-c and a fourth UE 115-d) are separately clustered together into a second group 250-b.

In this example, the base station 105 may concurrently page a first UE115-a and a second UE 115-b in a first group 250-a using a first beam 225-a (or a first set of beams), while concurrently paging a third UE 115-c and a fourth UE 115-d in a second group 250-b using a second beam 225-b (or a second set of beams).

To facilitate such grouping, short paging responses from multiple UEs 115 may identify received signal/beam quality information to allow the base station 105 to make an informed decision in selecting the beam 225 that provides the best signal quality between the base station 105 and the UE115 (or group of UEs). As explained above, the signal/beam quality information may include information such as the strength of the received beam among the short paging beam sweep, the strength of the subset of received beams (along with the beam identifier), and the strength of the most recently measured subset of synchronization channel beams (along with the beam and slot identifiers).

In some examples, the strength of a subset of the most recently measured synchronization channel beams may be reported if the synchronization beam is measured no more than N time slots before the current time slot, where the value of N may be set by an operator of the system. In particular, since the base station 105 is aware of the relationship between the synchronization channel and the short paging beam, the base station 105 may use this knowledge to optimize beam grouping (e.g., decide whether the synchronization beam is better than the short paging beam). It should be noted that the transmit beam direction is based on the corresponding receive beam of the short page, assuming reciprocity (e.g., the received beams would share the same characteristics of the transmit beam). If the reciprocity principle is not available, the UE may transmit a short paging response back to the base station using beam sweeping (e.g., using multiple beams).

Accordingly, techniques of the present disclosure may further facilitate UE115 feedback by including resource allocation information in an initial short paging message transmitted by a base station. The resource allocation information may include information related to one or more of time, frequency, bandwidth, DMRS cyclic shift/code, or component carriers (e.g., for cross-carrier allocation). With multiple component carriers, each UE115 may be configured to listen for short paging messages in a particular component carrier. A UE115 receiving one (or a limited) component carrier may need to be paged by the base station on one (or a limited) component carrier. However, a UE115 receiving multiple component carriers may combine the short paging message onto a single component carrier, thereby reducing the overhead required for the short paging message.

It should be appreciated that such resource allocation information allows the base station 105 to prevent collisions between multiple short paging responses for multiple UEs 115. However, adding such additional information to the short paging message may also always increase the overhead in the short paging message. Thus, in some examples, the size of the short paging message may depend on the number of UEs 115 being paged. The base station 105 may limit uncontrolled enlargement of the paging message size by assigning a maximum paging size requirement to any short paging message transmitted to the UE. Any incomplete portion of the resource allocation information (e.g., if the short paging message includes only resource information related to time, frequency, and bandwidth, not DMRS cyclic shift/code or component carrier) may be populated or determined by the UE115 based on previously stored configuration information that may inform the UE115 of incomplete (or missing) resource allocation information. However, if more than one UE115 being paged has the same previous configuration, such a determination may result in short paging response collisions when multiple UEs transmit respective short paging responses to the base station 105. In this case, the base station 105 may minimize such collisions at the expense of increased paging latency by avoiding paging UEs in the same paging cycle.

The short paging response transmitted by the UE115 to the base station 105 may also be an encoded packet. The coding scheme may be based on the pre-configured information, or one or more coding parameters (e.g., number of beam reports) may be part of the resource allocation in the short paging message. This may be quantified to avoid excessive short paging overhead (e.g., "small" versus "large" beam reporting). The short page response may also be sequence based. In other words, the base station may expect a particular sequence(s) from the UE in response to the transmission of the short paging message. The sequence(s) may be pre-agreed (e.g., configured by RRC or in MIB/mSIB/SIB). In other examples, multiple sequences may be used to carry information. For example, the UE115 may select from a plurality of sequences (e.g., two sequences) to indicate whether the received beam is stronger than a predetermined reference. The "predetermined reference" may be a fixed RSRP threshold or a fixed offset of the strength of the strongest synchronization beam. The network (or base station 105) may set a predetermined reference threshold/offset so that it may use the indication to determine whether the UE115 may be paged on an omni-directional beam.

Fig. 3 depicts hardware components and subcomponents of a device, which may be a transmitting device (e.g., base station 105), for implementing one or more methods described herein (e.g., method 400), in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure. For example, one example of an implementation of a transmitting device may include various components, some of which have been described above, but including components such as the one or more processors 312 and memory 316 and transceiver 302 in communication via the one or more buses 344, which may operate in conjunction with the communication management component 350 to process feedback received from the UE115 by selecting a beam from a plurality of beams for subsequent transmission with the UE 115. In some examples, communication management component 350 may include: a paging component 355 for generating one or more paging messages (e.g., short paging messages and/or long paging messages); and a beamforming component 360 for generating a beam comprising an omni-directional transmission that utilizes a multipath environment to transmit multiple spatial layers carrying the same or different encoded data. Accordingly, the communication management component 350 can perform the functions described herein relating to one or more methods including the present disclosure.

The one or more processors 312, modem 315, memory 316, transceiver 302, RF front end 388, and one or more antennas 365 may be configured to support voice and/or data calls (simultaneous or non-simultaneous) in one or more radio access technologies. In an aspect, the one or more processors 312 may include a modem 314 using one or more modem processors. Various functions related to the communication management component 350 may be included in the modem 314 and/or the processor 312 and, in one aspect, may be executed by a single processor, while in other aspects, different ones of the functions may be executed by a combination of two or more different processors. For example, in an aspect, the one or more processors 312 may include any one or any combination of the following: a modem processor, or a baseband processor, or a digital signal processor, or a transmit processor, or a receiver processor, or a transceiver processor associated with transceiver 302. In other aspects, some of the features of the one or more processors 312 and/or modem 314 associated with the communication management component 350 may be performed by the transceiver 302.

Additionally, the memory 316 may be configured to store local versions of data and/or applications used herein, or one or more of the communication management component 350 and/or subcomponents thereof, executed by the at least one processor 312. The memory 316 may include any type of computer-readable medium usable by the computer or at least one processor 312, such as Random Access Memory (RAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), tape, magnetic disk, optical disk, volatile memory, non-volatile memory, and any combination thereof. In an aspect, for example, when the base station 105 is operating the at least one processor 312 to execute the communication management component 350 and/or one or more of its subcomponents, the memory 316 may be a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores one or more computer-executable codes and/or data associated therewith that define the communication management component 350 and/or one or more of its subcomponents.

The transceiver 302 may include at least one receiver 306 and at least one transmitter 308. The receiver 306 may include hardware, firmware, and/or software code executable by a processor, the code comprising instructions and being stored in a memory (e.g., a computer-readable medium) for receiving data. The receiver 306 may be, for example, a Radio Frequency (RF) receiver. In an aspect, the receiver 306 may receive a signal transmitted by at least one UE 115. Additionally, receiver 306 may process such received signals and may also obtain measurements of such signals, such as, but not limited to, Ec/Io, SNR, RSRP, RSSI, and so forth. The transmitter 308 may include hardware, firmware, and/or software code executable by a processor for transmitting data, the code comprising instructions and being stored in a memory (e.g., a computer-readable medium). Suitable examples of transmitter 308 may include, but are not limited to, an RF transmitter.

Further, in an aspect, the transmitting device may include an RF front end 388 operable in communication with the one or more antennas 365 and the transceiver 302 for receiving and transmitting radio transmissions, such as wireless communications transmitted by the at least one base station 105 or wireless transmissions transmitted by the UE 115. The RF front end 388 may be connected to the one or more antennas 365 and may include one or more Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) 390 for transmitting and receiving RF signals, one or more switches 392, one or more Power Amplifiers (PAs) 398, and one or more filters 396.

In an aspect, LNA 390 may amplify the received signal to a desired output level. In an aspect, each LNA 390 may have specified minimum and maximum gain values. In an aspect, the RF front end 388 may use one or more switches 392 to select a particular LNA 390 and its specified gain value based on the desired gain value for a particular application.

Further, for example, one or more PAs 398 may be used by the RF front end 388 to amplify the signal to obtain an RF output at a desired output power level. In an aspect, each PA 398 may have specified minimum and maximum gain values. In an aspect, the RF front end 388 may use one or more switches 392 to select a particular PA 398 and its specified gain value based on a desired gain value for a particular application.

Further, for example, one or more filters 396 may be used by the RF front end 388 to filter the received signal to obtain an input RF signal. Similarly, in an aspect, respective filters 396 may be used to filter the output from respective PAs 398 to generate an output signal for transmission, for example. In an aspect, each filter 396 may be connected to a particular LNA 390 and/or PA 398. In an aspect, RF front end 388 may use one or more switches 392 to select transmit or receive paths using a designated filter 396, LNA 390, and/or PA 398 based on a configuration as specified by transceiver 302 and/or processor 312.

As such, the transceiver 302 may be configured to transmit and receive wireless signals through the one or more antennas 365 via the RF front end 388. In an aspect, the transceiver may be tuned to operate at a specified frequency such that the transmitting device may communicate with one or more base stations 105 or one or more cells associated with one or more base stations 105, for example. In an aspect, for example, modem 314 can configure transceiver 302 to operate at a specified frequency and power level based on the configuration of the transmitting device and the communication protocol used by modem 314.

In an aspect, modem 314 can be a multi-band-multi-mode modem that can process digital data and communicate with transceiver 302 such that the digital data is transmitted and received using transceiver 302. In an aspect, modem 314 may be multi-band and configured to support multiple frequency bands for a particular communication protocol. In an aspect, modem 314 may be multi-mode and configured to support multiple operating networks and communication protocols. In an aspect, modem 314 may control one or more components of the transmitting device (e.g., RF front end 388, transceiver 302) to enable signal transmission and/or reception from a network based on a specified modem configuration. In an aspect, the modem configuration may be based on the mode of the modem and the frequency band used. In another aspect, the modem configuration may be based on UE configuration information associated with the transmitting device, as provided by the network during cell selection and/or cell reselection.

Fig. 4 is a flow diagram of an example method 400 for utilizing UE feedback for beamforming at a base station in a wireless communication system, in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure. The method 400 may be performed using a device (e.g., a base station 105). Although the method 300 is described below with respect to elements of a transmitting device (e.g., base station 105), other components may also be used to implement one or more of the various steps described herein.

At block 405, the method may include: a plurality of short paging messages are transmitted from a base station to a plurality of UEs using a plurality of beams. In some examples, the transmission of the short paging message may employ a beam sweeping technique that transmits multiple beams in multiple directions in order to ensure that the multiple UEs receive the paging message. In one example, the short paging message may be directed to UEs in an idle mode (e.g., sleep mode). Each UE may periodically wake up to listen for a paging message, where a particular UE is the intended recipient of the paging message. If the UE determines that the page is intended for the UE based on the short paging message, the UE may remain awake to receive subsequent messages. In one or more examples, the short paging message may additionally include resource allocation information to be utilized by the plurality of UEs in response to the short paging message. The resource allocation information may include information related to one or more of time, frequency, bandwidth, DMRS cyclic shift/code, or component carriers (e.g., for cross-carrier allocation). Further, the base station may determine the total number of UEs that will become recipients of the short paging message. Accordingly, the base station may generate the short paging message such that the size of the short paging message is based on the total number of UEs. Aspects of block 405 may be performed by paging component 355 and transceiver 302 described with reference to fig. 3.

At block 410, the method may include: receiving, from the plurality of UEs, a plurality of short paging responses identifying signal quality information for at least one beam from the plurality of beams in response to the plurality of short paging messages. In some aspects, the signal quality information may include information associated with the channel or beam, such as the strength of the best received beam among the short paging beam sweep, the strength of a subset of the received beams (along with the beam identifier), and the strength of the most recently measured subset of the synchronization channel beams (along with the beam and slot identifiers). In some examples, the strength of the subset of most recently measured synchronization channel beams may be reported if the measurement synchronization beam does not exceed N time slots before the current time slot. The transmit power level of the short page response may be based on the strength of the best received beam of the plurality of beams for the short page message. Aspects of block 410 may be performed by the transceiver 302 described with reference to fig. 3.

At block 415, the method may optionally include: determining from a plurality of short range responses that a subset of UEs from the plurality of UEs can be grouped together for transmitting a paging message using the selected beam. Aspects of block 415 may be performed by beamforming component 360 described with reference to fig. 3.

At block 420, the method may include: selecting a beam for subsequent communication with at least one UE from the plurality of UEs based on the signal quality information. In some examples, the beam may be selected from a plurality of transmission beams based on information provided in the short paging response, the information identifying the beam providing the greatest signal quality to the UE. As such, in subsequent transmissions, the base station may restrict transmission of multiple beams in multiple directions in order to target a particular UE. Such techniques may save valuable power and bandwidth resources at the base station. Aspects of block 420 may be performed by beamforming component 360 described with reference to fig. 3.

At block 425, the method may include: transmitting a message to the at least one UE using the selected beam. In some examples, the message transmitted to the at least one UE using the selected beam may be a long paging message. However, it should be understood that the response message is not limited to a "long paging message," but may include any message transmitted in response to a paging message received from a base station. The long paging message may include additional information in addition to the short paging message and may therefore also be larger relative to the size of the short paging message. Although the present disclosure is described with reference to various paging messages, it should be understood that the techniques described herein may be used for any type of transmission not limited to paging. In some examples, a base station may group multiple UEs to be paged on the same beam based on short paging responses. In particular, UEs that may be clustered together or near the center of a cell may be paged together on an omni-directional beam. In some examples, transmitting may include: the selected beam (e.g., omni-directional beam) is used to transmit a plurality of long paging messages to a plurality of UEs grouped together. Thus, multiple UEs may be targeted using the same beam. In some examples, to avoid collisions, the base station may transmit paging messages to multiple UEs during different paging cycles. Aspects of block 425 may be performed by the transceiver 302 described with reference to fig. 3.

Fig. 5 depicts hardware components and subcomponents of a device, which may be a recipient device (e.g., UE 115), for implementing one or more methods described herein (e.g., method 500), in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure. For example, one example of an implementation of a transmitting device may include various components, some of which have been described above, but including components such as one or more processors 512 and memories 516 in communication via one or more buses 544 and a transceiver 502, which may operate in conjunction with a paging management component 550 to process a short-page message received from a base station 105 and generate a short-page response by selecting a beam for subsequent transmission from a plurality of beams. In some examples, paging management component 550 may include: a beam selection component 555 for identifying a transmit beam from the plurality of beam candidates for subsequent communication; and a short response component 560 for generating one or more short paging responses identifying signal quality of one or more transmit beams. Accordingly, paging management component 550 may perform functions described herein relating to methods including one or more of the present disclosure.

The one or more processors 512, modem 515, memory 516, transceiver 502, RF front end 588, and one or more antennas 565 may be configured to support voice and/or data calls (simultaneous or non-simultaneous) in one or more radio access technologies. In an aspect, the one or more processors 512 may include a modem 514 using one or more modem processors. Various functions related to the paging management component 550 may be included in the modem 514 and/or the processor 512 and, in one aspect, may be performed by a single processor, while in other aspects, different ones of the functions may be performed by a combination of two or more different processors. For example, in an aspect, the one or more processors 512 may include any one or any combination of the following: a modem processor, or a baseband processor, or a digital signal processor, or a transmit processor, or a receiver processor, or a transceiver processor associated with transceiver 502. In other aspects, some of the features of the one or more processors 512 and/or modems 514 associated with the paging management component 550 may be performed by the transceiver 502.

Additionally, memory 516 may be configured to store local versions of data and/or applications used herein, or one or more of paging management component 550 and/or subcomponents thereof, executed by at least one processor 512. Memory 516 may include any type of computer-readable medium usable by a computer or at least one processor 512, such as Random Access Memory (RAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), tape, magnetic disk, optical disk, volatile memory, non-volatile memory, and any combination thereof. In an aspect, for example, when UE115 is operating at least one processor 512 to execute paging management component 550 and/or one or more of its subcomponents, memory 516 may be a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores one or more computer-executable codes and/or data associated therewith that define paging management component 550 and/or one or more of its subcomponents.

The transceiver 502 may include at least one receiver 506 and at least one transmitter 508. The receiver 506 may include hardware, firmware, and/or software code executable by a processor, the code comprising instructions and being stored in a memory (e.g., a computer-readable medium) for receiving data. The receiver 506 may be, for example, a Radio Frequency (RF) receiver. In an aspect, the receiver 506 may receive a signal transmitted by at least one UE 115. Additionally, receiver 506 may process such received signals and may also obtain measurements of such signals, such as, but not limited to, Ec/Io, SNR, RSRP, RSSI, and so forth. The transmitter 508 may include hardware, firmware, and/or software code executable by a processor for transmitting data, the code comprising instructions and being stored in a memory (e.g., a computer-readable medium). Suitable examples of transmitter 308 may include, but are not limited to, an RF transmitter.

Further, in an aspect, the transmitting device may include an RF front end 588 operable in communication with the one or more antennas 565 and the transceiver 502 for receiving and transmitting radio transmissions, such as wireless communications transmitted by at least one base station 105 or wireless transmissions transmitted by a UE 115. RF front end 588 may be connected to one or more antennas 565 and may include one or more Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) 590, one or more switches 592, one or more Power Amplifiers (PAs) 598, and one or more filters 596 for transmitting and receiving RF signals.

In an aspect, LNA 590 may amplify the received signal to a desired output level. In an aspect, each LNA 590 may have specified minimum and maximum gain values. In an aspect, the RF front end 388 may use one or more switches 592 to select a particular LNA 390 and its specified gain value based on a desired gain value for a particular application.

Further, for example, one or more PAs 598 may be used by RF front end 588 to amplify a signal to obtain an RF output at a desired output power level. In an aspect, each PA 598 may have specified minimum and maximum gain values. In an aspect, RF front end 588 may use one or more switches 592 to select a particular PA 598 and its specified gain value based on a desired gain value for a particular application.

Also, for example, one or more filters 596 may be used by RF front end 588 to filter a received signal to obtain an input RF signal. Similarly, in an aspect, respective filters 596 may be used to filter the output from respective PAs 598 to generate output signals for transmission, for example. In an aspect, each filter 596 may be connected to a particular LNA 590 and/or PA 598. In an aspect, RF front end 588 may use one or more switches 592 to select a transmit or receive path using a specified filter 596, LNA 590, and/or PA 598 based on a configuration as specified by transceiver 502 and/or processor 512.

As such, transceiver 502 may be configured to transmit and receive wireless signals through one or more antennas 565 via RF front end 588. In an aspect, the transceiver may be tuned to operate at a specified frequency such that the transmitting device may communicate with one or more base stations 105 or one or more cells associated with one or more base stations 105, for example. In an aspect, for example, modem 314 can configure transceiver 502 to operate at a specified frequency and power level based on the configuration of the transmitting device and the communication protocol used by modem 514.

In an aspect, modem 514 can be a multi-band-multi-mode modem that can process digital data and communicate with transceiver 502 such that the digital data is transmitted and received using transceiver 502. In an aspect, modem 514 may be multi-band and configured to support multiple frequency bands for a particular communication protocol. In an aspect, modem 514 may be multi-mode and configured to support multiple operating networks and communication protocols. In an aspect, the modem 514 may control one or more components of the transmitting device (e.g., the RF front end 588, the transceiver 502) to enable signal transmission and/or reception from the network based on a specified modem configuration. In an aspect, the modem configuration may be based on the mode of the modem and the frequency band used. In another aspect, the modem configuration may be based on UE configuration information associated with the transmitting device, as provided by the network during cell selection and/or cell reselection.

Fig. 6 is a flow diagram of an example method 600 implemented by a UE for responding to a short paging message from a base station in a wireless communication system, in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure. The method 600 may be performed using an apparatus (e.g., UE 115). Although the method 600 is described below with respect to elements of the UE115, other components may also be used to implement one or more of the various steps described herein.

At block 605, the method may include: a short paging message is received at a User Equipment (UE) from a base station on a plurality of beams. In some examples, the short paging message may be received during a paging cycle. The short paging message may include a paging indicator identifying the intended target UE115 for paging. Further, in some examples, the short paging message may include resource allocation information in an initial short paging message transmitted by the base station. The resource allocation information may include information related to one or more of time, frequency, bandwidth, DMRS cyclic shift/code, or component carriers (e.g., for cross-carrier allocation). With multiple component carriers, each UE may be configured to listen for short paging messages in a particular component carrier. In some examples, the short paging message may include information associated with a short paging response resource allocation such that transmission of the short paging response is transmitted on a resource identified in the short paging resource allocation. Aspects of block 605 may be performed by the transceiver 502 described with reference to fig. 5.

At block 610, the method may include: the short paging message is decoded to determine whether the short page identifies the UE as an intended paging target. The UE, upon detecting that it is the intended recipient of the short paging message, may identify the receive beam that provides the greatest signal quality (e.g., low signal-to-noise ratio, transmission power, etc.) during the beam sweep process and provide such information to the base station in a short paging response (e.g., feedback). Aspects of block 610 may be performed by paging management component 550 described with reference to fig. 5.

At block 615, the method may include: the signal strengths of the plurality of beams are determined. In some examples, determining the signal strengths of the plurality of beams may include: determining that a signal strength from a transmit beam of the plurality of beams exceeds a reference threshold. Additionally or alternatively, the method may comprise: the signal strengths of a subset of the most recently measured synchronization channels are determined and a transmission beam is selected based on the determination. Aspects of block 615 may be performed by beam selection component 555 described with reference to fig. 5.

At block 620, the method may include: a transmit beam is selected from the plurality of beams for subsequent communication with the base station. In some examples, selecting a transmit beam for subsequent communication may provide relatively improved performance over the signal quality of the different beam(s). Thus, signal quality may include, but is not limited to, measurements of SNR, signal strength, data rate, QoS, reliability, and the like. It should also be noted that the transmit beam direction is based on the corresponding receive beam of the short page, assuming reciprocity (e.g., the received beams would share the same characteristics of the transmit beam). If the reciprocity principle is not available, the UE may transmit a short paging response back to the base station using beam sweeping (e.g., using multiple beams). In other examples, selecting a beam may include: a beam for transmission is identified based on a sequence of short paging responses, which may identify whether the beam is stronger or weaker than a pre-configured reference. The pre-configured reference may be one or more of a fixed RSRP threshold or a fixed offset of the strongest synchronization beam strength. Aspects of block 610 may be performed by beam selection component 555 described with reference to fig. 5.

At block 625, the method may include: the response is transmitted to the base station using the selected beam. In some examples, the response transmitted to the base station using the selected beam may be a "short paging response. However, it should be understood that the response is not limited to a short paging response, but may include any response transmitted by the UE in response to a paging message from the base station. The short paging response transmitted by the UE to the base station may also be an encoded packet. The coding scheme may be based on the pre-configured information, or one or more coding parameters (e.g., number of beam reports) may be part of the resource allocation in the short paging message. Aspects of block 605 may be performed by the transceiver 502 described with reference to fig. 5.

The above detailed description, set forth above in connection with the appended drawings, describes examples and is not intended to represent the only examples that may be implemented or fall within the scope of the claims. The term "example" when used in this description means "serving as an example, instance, or illustration," and does not mean "preferred" or "superior to other examples. The detailed description includes specific details to provide an understanding of the described technology. However, the techniques may be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the concepts of the described examples.

Information and signals may be represented using any of a variety of different technologies and techniques. For example, data, instructions, commands, information, signals, bits (bits), symbols, and chips that may be referenced throughout the above description may be represented by voltages, currents, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, computer-executable code or instructions stored on a computer-readable medium, or any combination thereof.

The various illustrative blocks and components described in connection with the disclosure herein may be implemented or performed with a specially programmed device (such as, but not limited to, a processor), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an ASIC, FPGA or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein. The specially programmed processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A specially programmed processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other such configuration.

The functions described herein may be implemented in hardware, software executed by a processor, firmware, or any combination thereof. If implemented in software executed by a processor, the functions may be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a non-transitory computer-readable medium. Other examples and implementations are within the scope and spirit of the disclosure and the following claims. For example, due to the nature of software, the functions described above may be implemented using software executed by a specifically programmed processor, hardware, firmware, hard-wired, or any combination thereof. Features that implement functions may also be physically located at various locations, including being distributed such that portions of functions are implemented at different physical locations. Also, as used herein, including in the claims, "or" as used in a list of items prefaced by "at least one" indicates a disjunctive list, such that, for example, a list of "A, B or at least one of C" means a or B or C or AB or AC or BC or ABC (i.e., a and B and C).

Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media, including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. A storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and not limitation, computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to carry or store desired program code means in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a general-purpose or special-purpose computer, or a general-purpose or special-purpose processor. Any connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. For example, if the software is transmitted from a website, server, or other remote source using a coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave, then the coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave are included in the definition of medium. Disk (disk) and disc (disc), as used herein, includes Compact Disc (CD), laser disc, optical disc, Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), floppy disk, and blu-ray disc where disks (disks) usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs (discs) reproduce data optically with lasers. Combinations of the above are also included within the scope of computer-readable media.

It should be noted that the techniques described above may be used for various wireless communication networks, such as CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA, SC-FDMA and other systems. The terms "system" and "network" are often used interchangeably. A CDMA system may implement radio technologies such as CDMA2000, Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), and so on. CDMA2000 covers IS-2000, IS-95 and IS-856 standards. IS-2000 releases 0 and A are often referred to as CDMA 20001X, 1X, etc. IS-856(TIA-856) IS often referred to as CDMA 20001 xEV-DO, High Rate Packet Data (HRPD), etc. UTRA includes wideband CDMA (wcdma) and other CDMA variants. TDMA systems may implement radio technologies such as global system for mobile communications (GSM). OFDMA systems may implement methods such as Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), evolved UTRA (E-UTRA), IEEE802.11(Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.16(WiMAX), IEEE 802.20, Flash-OFDM^TMEtc. radio technologies. UTRA and E-UTRA are part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced (LTE-A) are new UMTS releases that use E-UTRA. UTRA, E-UTRA, UMTS, LTE-A, and GSM are described in literature from an organization named "third Generation partnership project" (3 GPP). CDMA2000 and UMB are described in documents from an organization named "third generation partnership project 2" (3GPP 2). The techniques described herein may be used for both the above-mentioned systems and radio technologies, as well as for other systems and radio technologies, including cellular (e.g., LTE) communications over a shared radio frequency spectrum band. However, the following description describes an LTE/LTE-A system for purposes of example, and LTE terminology is used in much of the description belowBut these techniques may also be applicable outside of LTE/LTE-a applications (e.g., to 5G networks or other next generation communication systems).

The previous description of the disclosure is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the disclosure. Various modifications to the disclosure will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other variations without departing from the spirit or scope of the disclosure. Furthermore, although elements of the described aspects and/or embodiments may be described or claimed in the singular, the plural is contemplated unless limitation to the singular is explicitly stated. Additionally, all or a portion of any aspect and/or embodiment may be utilized with all or a portion of any other aspect and/or embodiment, unless stated otherwise. Thus, the disclosure is not intended to be limited to the examples and designs described herein but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosed herein.

Claims (27)

1. A method for wireless communication, comprising:

transmitting, from a base station, a plurality of short paging messages to a plurality of User Equipments (UEs) using a plurality of beams;

receiving a plurality of short paging responses from the plurality of UEs identifying signal quality information for at least one beam from the plurality of beams in response to the plurality of short paging messages;

selecting a beam for subsequent communication with a subset of UEs from the plurality of UEs based at least in part on the signal quality information from the plurality of short paging responses; and

transmitting at least one message to at least one UE of the subset of UEs using the selected beam, the at least one message comprising at least one long paging message.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the beam comprises:

determining from the plurality of short paging responses that the subset of UEs from which the paging message can be transmitted can be grouped together for use in transmitting the paging message using the selected beam;

wherein the transmitting comprises: transmitting a plurality of long paging messages to the plurality of UEs using the selected beam, wherein the plurality of long paging messages includes the at least one long paging message.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the signal quality information comprises one or more of:

a signal strength of a received beam from the plurality of beams;

signal strengths from a subset of beams in the plurality of beams; or

The signal strength of the subset of synchronization channel beams was most recently measured.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the plurality of short paging messages to the plurality of UEs comprises:

determining a total number of UEs to be recipients of the short paging message; and

generating the short paging message such that a size of the short paging message is based on a total number of the UEs to be recipients of the short paging message.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of short paging messages comprise information associated with a short paging response resource allocation.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the beam for subsequent communication comprises: identifying the beam for transmission based on a sequence of the short paging response, wherein the sequence of the short paging response may identify whether the beam is stronger than a pre-configured reference.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the preconfigured reference is one or more of a fixed Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) threshold or a fixed offset of a strongest synchronization beam strength.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the message transmitted to the at least one UE using the selected beam is a long paging message.

9. An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:

a transceiver;

a memory;

a processor communicatively coupled with the transceiver and the memory, the processor configured to:

transmitting, via the transceiver, a short paging message to a User Equipment (UE) in a plurality of directions using a plurality of beams;

receiving, via the transceiver, a short paging response sequence from the UE including signal quality information indicating that a beam from the plurality of beams is stronger than a pre-configured reference with respect to the beam in response to the short paging message;

selecting the beam identified by the short paging response sequence for subsequent communication with the UE; and

transmitting a message to the UE on the selected beam via the transceiver.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the signal quality information comprises one or more of:

a signal strength of a received beam from the plurality of beams;

signal strengths from a subset of beams in the plurality of beams; or

The signal strength of the subset of synchronization channel beams was most recently measured.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor is further configured to:

determining a total number of UEs to be recipients of the short paging message; and

generating the short paging message such that a size of the short paging message is based on a total number of the UEs to be recipients of the short paging message.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the short paging message comprises information associated with a short paging response resource allocation.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the preconfigured reference is one or more of a fixed Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) threshold or a fixed offset of a strongest synchronization beam strength.

14. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the message transmitted to the UE using the selected beam is a long paging message.

15. A method for wireless communications by a User Equipment (UE), comprising:

receiving, at a UE, a short paging message from a base station on a plurality of beams;

decoding the short paging message to determine whether the short paging identifies the UE as an intended paging target;

selecting a transmit beam from the plurality of beams for subsequent communication with the base station; and

transmitting a response to the base station using the selected beam;

receiving at least one long paging message in response to the UE being selected by the base station as being in a subset of UEs with which to communicate.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein selecting the transmit beam from the plurality of beams comprises:

determining signal strengths of the plurality of beams; and

selecting the transmit beam from the plurality of beams for subsequent communication with the base station based on the determination that the signal strength of the transmit beam from the plurality of beams exceeds a reference threshold.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein selecting the transmit beam from the plurality of beams comprises:

determining signal strengths of a subset of most recently measured synchronization channel beams; and

selecting the transmit beam based on the determination.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the short page message includes information associated with a short page response resource allocation, and wherein

Wherein the short page response is transmitted on a resource identified in the short page response resource allocation.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein selecting the beam for subsequent communication comprises:

identifying the transmit beam for transmission based on a sequence of the short paging response, wherein the sequence of the short paging response may identify whether the beam is stronger than a pre-configured reference.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the preconfigured reference is one or more of a fixed Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) threshold or a fixed offset of a strongest synchronization beam strength.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein the response transmitted to the base station using the selected beam is a short paging response.

22. An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:

a memory configured to store instructions;

a processor communicatively coupled with the memory, the processor configured to execute the instructions to:

receiving, at a UE, a short paging message from a base station on a plurality of beams;

decoding the short paging message to determine whether the short paging identifies the UE as an intended paging target;

selecting a transmit beam from the plurality of beams for subsequent communication with the base station; and

transmitting a response to the base station using the selected beam;

receiving at least one long paging message in response to the UE being selected by the base station as being in a subset of UEs with which to communicate.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the instructions to select the transmit beam from the plurality of beams are further executable by the processor to:

determining signal strengths of the plurality of beams; and

selecting a transmission beam from the plurality of beams for subsequent communication with the base station based on the determination that the signal strength of the transmission beam from the plurality of beams exceeds a reference threshold.

24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the instructions to select the transmit beam from the plurality of beams are further executable by the processor to:

determining signal strengths of a subset of most recently measured synchronization channel beams; and

selecting the transmit beam based on the determination.

25. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the short paging message comprises information associated with a short paging response resource allocation, and wherein

Wherein the short page response is transmitted on a resource identified in the short page response resource allocation.

26. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the instructions to select the transmit beam from the plurality of beams are further executable by the processor to:

identifying the beam for transmission based on a sequence of the short paging response, wherein the sequence of the short paging response may identify whether the beam is stronger than a pre-configured reference.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the preconfigured reference is one or more of a fixed Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) threshold or a fixed offset of a strongest synchronization beam strength.

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